Here is Where You Say Hello
by Watanabe Maya
Summary: "Yukio," he remembers. His voice says it so smoothly that Kasamatsu feels his pulse race, and his eyes grow wide. [Somewhere – distantly, in a memory that is vague – he will learn of the boy and his name to be Ryouta.] \\ Multi-dimensional!KiKasa AU.


a kise/kasamatsu fic featuring parallel worlds and alternative timelines in a very messy experimental writing style. just wanted to try something new with this fic. it's kinda linear but also kinda _not_...so uhm...i doubt it'll make any sense (even i struggled to figure out what the hell this whole thing would mean huhu) i wanted to retain a sense of vagueness and ambiguity with this though, in my pathetic attempt to replicate the 'wibbly wobby timey whimey' nature of dreams and of how they all have a tendency to either bleed into one another in a messy blend of thoughts, or abruptly jump from one point to the next and maybe even back, sometimes concentrating on only specific aspects and details without paying heed or mind to much else. i hope that you guys will be able to find that from this maybe, or maybe even come up with some more insightful ideas of your own as you interpret this. my mind's not philosophical. i'm not deep. lol.

ps: "yukio" is such a pretty name. (i guess you guys will probably notice just how much in love i am with kasamatsu's given name by the time you finish this fic :)))

anyway...please do leave a review, a comment or a concrit, anything will be fine. **it just makes me happy to hear from you guys. :)**

 **disclaimer: i don't own kuroko no basuke**

* * *

"Yukio _,"_ he will say - _not quite -_ for the first time.

 _I am here,_ his heart would answer, and beat the same way it did last. _And I am yours._

 _For as long as you would want me, I will always be yours._

-x-

Theirs is a story that begins at the end.

.

Kasamatsu is a dense boy.

A dense and oblivious boy.

Therefore, he reasons, he shouldn't be the one who should take all the blame. He is like a puppet, only strewn along, as Kise is the one who puts the gears into motion and sets the game to play. He's had nothing to do with this _thank you very much_ , so he'll take what he can and he can claim innocence, when in fact; really—

Kasamatsu is a _stubborn_ , dense, and oblivious boy who didn't even realize when said story had started. Much less, when it ended.

.

.

.

He also doesn't realize that he is the reason as to why it _begins_.

.

They meet at the heart of his seventeenth spring.

-x-

 _"_ _Yukio."_

He remembers. His voice says it so smoothly that Kasamatsu feels his pulse race, and his eyes grow wide.

.

[Somewhere – distantly, in a memory that is vague – he will learn of the boy and his name to be _Ryouta_.]

.

His existence baffles him.

Still, he feigns indifference, plastering on an expression that is clearly unamused. He doesn't even bother to bat the blonde an eye. It's the first time Kise's ever called him by that name and Kasamatsu would be damned if he'd let his _kouhai_ get away with it so easily.

"I don't recall that we've reached a point of contract to be referring to one another so intimately on a first-name sort of basis. You forget that I'm older than you, Kise," the stern boy reminds, not quite returning the younger one's stare. "Do remember to respect your elders."

(But really, the truth is, right now, the boy catches him off guard, and – if the faint blush of his cheeks were to be any sort of indicant of affirmation– very nearly, by surprise.)

.

[In another time, he will reminisce, of the moments when he'd fall in love with a black and white photo, of the memory of a boy in this two-toned world, of a story and a history claimed and lost in the multitude of _once upon a time's_ and _long, long ago's_.]

.

"Then how should I call you? Kasamatsu?" the first-year asks and he grins, "…Kasamatcchi?"

He feels a vein pop on the crown of his head. "Hell no."

 _Troublesome brat stop being so difficult._

"Ka-sa-ma- _tsu_ ," Kise articulates, and he breathes the last syllable, teasing, a tickle in his ear, and—

The captain shoots the boy a sharp gaze. " _Kise."_

"… _senpai,"_ he –albeit reluctantly – affixes. _"_ Kasamatsu-senpai. There. Better?"

 _"_ Damn straight that's better," he scoffs, prompting a loud _Wah…Senpai's so mean!_ from the young freshman when he hits him over the head – a soft _thunk_ – with the heel of his hand.

 _Well_ , his brain chides, and the captain bites back a smile. The sakura stands proud in the midst of their wakes, a flurry of pinks in the peak of its bloom. Petals scatter in their midst and pool at their feet. Kasamatsu looks around and watches as they dance, while the model tugs on the hem of his shirt, fingers toying with a stray thread plucked from the most-bottom of his buttons.

"Practice is starting. Come, let's not be late."

-x-

Kasamatsu has dreams.

They are recurrent, sequential, and come in patterns. He thinks of them as memories, but remains uncertain if they are his own. Perhaps they are, perhaps they aren't.

[Nothing is ever sure in this world that he lives in.]

.

 _"Tell me something," he wonders one day, plopping down onto the mattress, cradling the pillow to his chest. There is a table, two cushions, teacups, a teapot, and the bed. A woman – he assumes to be his mother – stands aside, waiting. The sky is stark outside their window and the world is barren of much else. "Do you think I could be loved?" he asks._

 _The question falls between them, raging, as a storm – all quivering lips and heartbeats roaring like a thunder in the cage of his fragile bones._

 _"Of course, my dear. If you wait long enough, I'm sure that you'll find the one," she says, eyes knowing and wise, cheeks crinkling as she purses her lips then cracks open a smile. "You must only believe."_

 _"Mm, I don't think so… I don't think anyone could ever come to love someone like me."_

 _"No, my darling Yukio," and the woman shakes her head. "Everyone is bound together by the red strings of fate; we all have our destined persons. Someone is yours, just as you will be theirs. And somewhere, out there, that person exists, waiting for only you – for you to come, and for them to be found."_

-x-

(Let's realign the constellations, star after star; entangling the strings of fate until you and I collide.)

.

After practice, it is by routine that the boys all go to school together. It fuels their morale, and boosts the legitimacy of their excuses, should they ever need to find a reason as to why they were late. Moriyama leads the group, adamant in his search for pretty girls, followed by the ever-incoherent Hayakawa, then Kobori, and last, Nakamura. Kasamatsu is always tired from the duties borne from his responsibilities as captain, and he opts to conserve his energy for the rest of the day off-court. He and Kise, who is always reluctant to head to the thresholds of knowledge and lectures at class, always lag behind at the end of their line.

Today, they are especially slow. Kise has injured his leg in their last game against Touo, bearing the brunt of the consequences of overwork, and Kasamatsu does not want to risk the boy straining himself any further. What is to be the fate of Kaijou if their ace is not at the top of his game? It's his job as their captain to keep him – and the rest of their mates – safe; anything for the team.

"Sorry you have to deal with this, senpai. You can go ahead if you like."

The others have already left them behind, but Kasamatsu is loyal, and stays by his side.

"It's fine," he answers, "I don't mind."

Today, they walk to school – alone – together.

.

[In another world, they are holding hands.]

-x-

 _There's just you, and just me –_

 _And the spaces that linger between our dreams and reality._

.

(Please, please take my nightmares away.)

.

.

.

Kise's greatest asset will always be his lips. Where words roll off his tongue effortlessly, pregnant and heavy with meaning, and where he can kiss Kasamatsu senselessly enough to ravage his soul with reckless abandon.

He discovers this on a Wednesday, after a particularly bloody fistfight with some alleyway boons from the neighboring district. They attended their game, watched their loss against Seirin, and proceeded to berate Kaijou's members with a plague of insults – most of which, directed at their captain.

Luckily for his career, there is not a scar on the model's pretty face. But _Kise you moron how on earth do you expect to be able to play basketball like this?!_ his captain freaks, judging his condition by the sight of the blood of his knuckles, and the frailty of his hands.

[He is not a stranger to these hands, Kasamatsu recollects, pauses, and considers. Somewhere, sometime, he'd have memorized the lines of their palms, the warmth of their touch, and the feeling of them as they would wrap, the way a lover would, around the small of his back.]

.

"Why would you do that, you idiot?" he wrangles his neck and the blonde struggles out his grasp and very hardly finds the air to breathe. But the spiky-haired boy is persistent when he loosens his grip and lets him go, not hesitating with his threats to kick the model unless he presented him with a logical answer. "You don't go around picking fights with thugs just because they've let slip a couple of rude comments about our—"

 _Because it's you,_ the boy breathes and Kasamatsu nearly topples over and reels in shock –a pleasant, fluttering, ear-maddening, butterflies-in-the-stomach-inducing _shock_.

"Senpai—" Kise calls out, prompting the captain to face his direction.

He arches his back, bending over to pretend to tie his shoelaces. He doesn't turn his head, doesn't face the boy, doesn't even spare him a quick glance over his shoulder.

Instead, he shifts his gaze and, even further, looks away.

"Senpai, don't be like that—"

He wills the blush to fade quickly from his cheeks. He can't be seen like this now.

" _Kise_ —" he says instead, when his breath hitches before the model presses their lips, gasps for air, then he looks him in the eye. Still frozen in shock, Kasamatsu doesn't find the words in him to speak, but he raises a hand to his face towards his lips and—

"I like you, Senpai."

And almost, he trembles.

.

 _To him—_

Kise feels familiar, and foreign all the same.

.

.

.

[In another world, his mind evokes, and he'll dream of them in bed. He's biting down his lip to cage the guttural sounds threatening to escape from the back of his throat. _I love you,_ he will gasp as the other will moan, and he will remember to take him by the hand, their fingers touching, linking, locked – _intertwined_.]

-x-

When the ebony-haired boy heads off to school, he drops by the court and warms up – a few dribbles, foot-works, and then maybe hoops – before sipping his water and resting on the bench. The squeak of rubber is loud against the hollow of wood, and the noise of his shoes echo resoundingly in the halls of their gym. He waits for the others, but remains alone for now. It is understandable. As captain, he observes that he is always, without fail, the first to arrive.

And, as a frequent observer of patterns, Kise always follows, with a wave, second to him in line.

"Mornin', senpai!"

He looks like something, Kasamatsu thinks - something familiar, as though he's seen him before. Like wharls that resound in his old cat's purr, _Beni_ , when she walks on the wood, rattling it _click click click_ under the weight of her paws. Blinks of a sunrise. The first stretch of morning.

" _Kise-_ "

 _The golden boy_ , he thinks, and the memory ends there when he finally opens his eyes.

.

.

.

 _(The breath of a kiss. The taste of your lips. The flavor of the sky. Your soul mixing in with mine.)_

It comes like a fortune, like kismet. Moirai.

.

There is a boy.

 _Perhaps we may meet again, somewhere, someday…in another time, or another place._ Someone is speaking with a tenor of a voice that sounds gentle, so soft. _And when that moment comes, I will be sure to never again leave your side._

 _So wait for me,_ his heart pleads.

 _I will find you._

-x-

"Senpaiiiii…" the first-year bawls, face crumpling near tears. "Don't go to university. You can't graduate yet. You can't leave me; I love you. I'll miss you—"

"What are you talking about? " his captain scoffs, "I've only just retired. It's too soon to fret about the future."

"Kasa—"

"Think about the present, idiot. And be grateful," Kasamatsu ruffles his hair, pecks a kiss to his cheek, and tells him with a smile, "I'm still here, aren't I?"

.

.

.

 _Mother never told him that fate also worked the other way around._

 _._

[Someday – in a moment of time, a far-off place – he will remember to hold him close.]

-x-

"I see you're into reading lately," the – now – former captain notes as he enters the room. They are in the library today. Kise is cramming in light of the upcoming midterm examinations and, for an academically challenged idiot, Kasamatsu admires his determination. He excuses him from training and gives the young model the green light to pass.

"Don't forget about building your stamina, Kise, after all this is over," Kasamatsu guides his pupil, "you still have a ways to go before you can triumph in the next Inter-High."

"Mhm. Got it," the younger boy answers, eyes transfixed on pages; book in tow. He stretches his arms high above his shoulders and wrings his neck to ward off the impending ache. He whines, " _Ugh_. I hate this! Why is English so hard? Help me, senpai."

"You know I'll be of more use to you in Math. It's not like English is my strong point either..." Kise looks at him, desperate – a pleading pair of puppy dog eyes.

"Senpaiiii—"

"Alright, fine. You win," the older boy breathes, and heaves a deep sigh. "Hand me your vocabulary lists. I can at least do that much."

.

.

 _Deployed, a voice says._

 _War,_

 _Another answers._

.

.

"Now look here," Kise obliges as Kasamatsu instructs. "'Saccade,' it says, 'the quick movement of our eyeballs every time we shift them from one object to another.'"

"Okay," the blonde repeats, "saccade."

"And the definition?"

"'The quick movement of our eyeballs every time they shift from one thing to another," Kise answers. "Hey, is that kind of like the ephemeral thing? You know, the ones we did before. Like the words 'fleeting' or 'transient'?"

"Well, they're close. Related… in a way, if you think about it. Like if you're referring to the span of attention you transfix on objects in quick saccades of your eyes. Those words are more of descriptions, though, being adjectives and all that. The term 'saccade' isn't use to describe. It's more of just a thing, since it's a noun," the third-year shrugs. "I'm no expert, but I think that some nouns can be used to describe things, if you phrase them right."

"Hmm…that's pretty cool." the model peers closer when he reads, before he turns to his side and commands the other's gaze. "Hey, senpai. Have you ever considered having favorite words? Mine's 'snow.' What's yours?"

"Don't have one." The boy with the raven hair looks on, eyes bored and half-lidded. "Now, back to work. You're straying."

Kise pouts, "Aw, come on, senpai. You're no fun!" Kasamatsu rolls his eyes and pries a book off of the nearby shelf. He scans the page, fingers glissading down, scrolling scrolling scrolling... _a halt_ – he stops.

 _/souˈdädə/_

 _(n.) A nostalgic longing to be near again to something or someone that is distant, or that has been loved and then lost;_

"I found one, Kise." he says, and his index rests at a point on the page. It is Portuguese _,_ Kasamatsu discerns the moment he opens the book. He purses his lips, breaths lingering. A pause.

"Here," he reads, "saudade."

 _The love that remains._

-x-

Kasamatsu hears of the news from the words of Moriyama.

"He's moving to America," the tall shooting guard explains in the midst of class, before they head to practice. The third years no longer play at official games, but they're tasked to watch over the successors of their positions. They attend to their training, passing down tips, and being tasked to supervise. "They say his father's found a job, and they'd like for him to enroll in the States to prep for university."

.

.

.

Kise would tell him that he loves him. He'd say it so often that Kasamatsu worries that with the overuse, his words would begin to lose their meaning; but now Kise hardly says anything anymore, and he wonders if his words even meant anything at all.

.

 _"Wait for me," he remembers hearing him say, "I will find you."_

 _(But in that other world, he finds that he never quite does.)_

-x-

His eyes flicker to a close in that single fleeting moment, and he sees him – _quickly, briefly_ – for the last and final time.

.

 _"I'm going to be a pilot," the boy declares and calls out to him, "Yukio."_

 _"Why?" he stammers and demands to ask. His heart is in knots at the coils of red thread. It is frayed at the edges. "You cannot leave me."_

 _"But I must," the boy answers back. "Our country needs me. Father says that with my skill, I can lead us to victory."_

 _But he does not care about victory, not now, not here. He does not care about winning, not if it means the sacrifice of the ones he holds so precious to him – so dear._

 _"The view from above is a deep, gorgeous blue, Yukio," the boy whispers to him then, but all he can think is of the murkiness of greys and the smog that clouds the air. "It is true," he laughs, "that they are no longer as clear as they were once, or used to be. But they remain beautiful, as I would perceive - if not even more so, to me."_

 _His brow arches up thickly, unconvinced._

 _"Sometimes I lose myself in its shades of steel blue; as though it is reflecting the waters of midnight," the boy says it like a secret, arcane. "It reminds me of you, Yukio. When I look up, I remember your eyes."_

 _"Ryou—"_

 _"Do not wait for me. I cannot promise that I will return home, and I do not want to burden you with the uncertainty of my arrival," the boy looks at him and pleads. "But do not worry, my dear Yukio. I will watch over you. I will keep you safe. Always._ _Always—_ _"_

 _He does not want him to._

 _"I just want to protect you. Please do not be angry with me, you know that I love you."_

 _"Yes," the raven boy snaps bitterly. "I know. Is that not reason enough for me to make you stay?"_

 _His temperament rages, and his tone is almost fierce. He looks at him then, a piercing altercation exchanged with a gaze. The boy's irises shine gold, iridescent in the light._

 _"Yukio, I—"_

 _But he knows the boy, and the boy is not one who can sit still. He is not a beast to be confined to the walls of this constricting sanctuary that they call home. Neither is the boy meant to face battles in the open zone warfront, but he can very well glide through it if he played from up above, his plane dancing – a pirouette – in the vastness of the sky._

 _"…Go," he utters to his golden boy at last, "spread your wings and fly."_

 _._

 _._

 _._

Kasamatsu has dreams.

They are recurrent, sequential, and come in patterns. He thinks of them as memories, but remains uncertain if they are his own. Perhaps they are, perhaps they aren't.

This one is a deviant. It is different. This dream is sad – so much, to the point that every time he wakes, he does so crying. _Maybe it is mine,_ he thinks, a rational cause for its affliction of his emotions. His frame is wracked by sobs and tears and very almost does he consider it as this: a nightmare.

.

 _Sounds of gunshots._

 _Scents of rain._

 _The sky falls._

.

.

.

 _["Where are you going?"]_

-x-

 _"_ I'm sorry," Kise tells him one day, and his voice tells him everything that Kasamatsu needs to know about the lingering thought he's been pondering for over nearly a year. There is, he tells himself, a set time for when love will expire.

But then he kisses him.

.

"Do not wait for me, senpai," he speaks softly, a quiet whisper in his ears. "This is goodbye."

He takes him by the lips, but he is not gentle. Not warm. This time, he is strong, forceful – and everything feels so wrong that Kasamatsu holds back the tears that threaten to spill over amidst the stinging of his eyes.

[But in another time, this will feel right.]

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _"Thank you, Yukio. " The boy requests before he flashes him a smile, "Can I ask you to promise me one thing?"_

 _"What is it?" he replies, and the golden boy shines, eyes brimming with gratitude._

 _"Whenever you look up, please think of me as happy. When I am in the sky, I dance alone to the memory of you."_

.

.

.

 _("I give you freedom, my love.")_

.

[In another world, he will promise not to let go.]

-x-

Theirs is a story that begins at the end.

.

Winter is falling and the sakura is dead, and the white showers down in a noiseless array all around him. It is quiet in this seemingly pristine world – this wonderland, this paradise – and the blue-eyed boy finds himself drowned by his mind in the noiseless abyss. His breaths fog the air and are almost inaudible against the loudness of his thoughts.

 _._

[But neither of these matter, because they will meet again. Always, at this point, where dimensions intersect – together once more –fleeting, dreamlike, permanent, real. _Here_. Right here, where galaxies collapse and planes divide and nebulae burst and bodies touch with the slightest of shivers. Here will their souls reunite, at the birthplace of stars, dancing a waltz at the world's edge, precipice, border—

 _and end_.]

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _(I am here.)_

-x-

Amidst the sound of silence and the snowflakes that litter round, is a familiar patter of footfalls and the call of a boy jolting him out of his daze, because at last, finally, now…right now—

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _(I am home.)_

 _._

" _Yukio_ ," he says, and it feels just like the first time.

* * *

 **there you have it thank you so much for bearing with me and taking the time to read this!**

.

 _edit: i read this again and ok this turned out to be better than i first feared/expected lol but i still dont know what this is HAHAhuhu_


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